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So sad to leave! Silvia (Airbnb owner) showed up promptly at 5:28am to check us out, and we were headed out to catch the airport bus a few minutes later. The bus ride was a piece of cake, we had purchased tickets the night before and the stop was right across the street from our Airbnb. The adventure started once we got to the airport.

Check-in for the flight had not opened yet, and we stood around in crowds until it opened, 2 hours before the flight. Similar to the way there, had a layover in Istanbul. Getting through security was easy and fast, and we had plenty of time to get some breakfast and some last minute souvenirs. The Budapest to Istanbul flight was short and uneventful, and I actually don’t remember anything about it. Istanbul to Chicago turned out to be a bit more interesting. Luckily, we decided to head to the gate early, where we then proceeded through 3 checkpoints where our boarding passes and/or passports were checked, and one where are bags were checked and we were patted down. Phew! Reminded me a little of Panama, where we had to move away from the gate so security could then screen us again (and take our just purchased sealed beverage bottles). Finally done with all the security, sort of. There was one woman trying to bring either three bags of coffee or three bags of sugar (Egg thinks coffee, I thought it was sugar). She and her traveling companion didn’t seem to understand that airport security was not going to let them bring it on board. Honestly, I don’t exactly understand why. Either way, the guy kept saying, it’s ok, it’s mine, and the security kept telling him, it doesn’t matter who it belongs to, you can’t bring it on board.

Egg says that Ryan and I are cursed when it comes to travel. At least it appears that way for this trip. There were operational problems with our plane. The flight was delayed 20 minutes, then another 30 minutes, then two hours. At that point, the airlines gave us food and drinks, which is never a good sign! After that, they changed our gate. Luckily, we all stuck around, and just got shuffled up to the new gate. Anyone who had wandered off had to go through the at-gate security process again! Being delayed did allow us to FaceTime with Sam before he left for school. Pretty sure he was more interested in the chocolate milk mom was giving him for breakfast than actually talking to us.

We boarded the plane and got to our seat, where there was a small boy, maybe about 5 years old, standing with a large bag. He didn’t speak English and we weren’t quite sure what to do. Eventually, his grandmother came from further back in the plane to fetch him. Our row, bulkhead, consisted of Egg and Kate on one side, Ryan and me on the other, and a family with two kids, 3 years and 1.5 years, in between us. The row behind us had another baby, and they were all playing musical chairs with the bassinet in the bulkhead. I cannot imagine traveling with little kids on that long of a flight, but I guess you do what you have to.

Wednesday was our last day in Budapest, and we packed it with sites and fun. First stop was the Dohany Street Synagogue, where we took a tour, learned the history of the synagogue, visited the gardens with the Tree of Life Memorial, and listened to a Klezmer band. The synagogue is the largest in Europe. The architects did not know what a synagogue should look like, so they built it like a cathedral, with an organ and the small raised pulpits on the sides. The synagogue was bombed during WWII, and Estee Lauder and Tony Curtis provided a large percentage of the funding to restore and renovate it in the 1990s. We really enjoyed listening and clapping to the Klezmer band that played in an auditorium on the grounds.

Modeling my new spidey sunglasses

Next up was the parliament tour, that Egg scheduled in advance because it is so popular! The House of Parliament, as can be seen in some of the previous photos posted, looks more like an ornate castle than a government building. The building was gorgeous and filled with gold decorations.

Parliament chamber

Cigar holders in parliament hallway

Original master clockwork of parliament building

After the tours, we grabbed some delicious lunch and went to checkout the Szechenyi Baths for some relaxing before the day of travel ahead.

Lunch starters

The baths were huge, with 18 hot pools (indoors and outdoors), saunas, cabanas, massage rooms, and who knows what else. It was actually a surprise that we all found one another, after going in different entrances and splitting to go to locker rooms. We settled into a large outdoor pool, alternating between floating in the water and cooling off on the chaise lounges, and doing lots of people watching. Ryan was introduced to the European style of women’s bathing suit, not quite a thong, but also not quite covering all of the wearer’s tush either. What a great way to finish up our vacation! (I mean the baths, not the bathing suit bottoms) :-).

Heroes Square

Castle in City Park, across from Heroes Square

Once of the many entrances into the baths

We decided I should probably not try to bring this sign home

The evening was spent snacking on leftover sausage, cheese, and bread, packing, and taking a walk out for rose gelato.

The currency in Hungary is called the Forint, but being Americans, we kept referring to it as Fortnights.

Egg and Kate made a game day call on Tuesday, and decided to take a monster scooter tour around the Pest side of the city. First bikes, now scooters! I don’t even recognize my brother on this trip. They gave rave reviews and said it was a great time and their tour guide was awesome.

Ryan and I decided to sleep in and then head over to the Buda side of the city for some suburban hiking to a few sites. We visited the Cave Church seen previously from the boat tour, and then hiked up to the Citadel with the Lady Liberty statue. The Citadel is situated on a big hill in the middle of a park in the city, requiring us to walk up many many steps. Of course, we also could have taken transportation up to the top.

Monument to St. Stephen outside the Cave Church

After the Citadel, we walked all the way down to the Hospital in The Rock. It was a lovely walk through a hilly suburban area, past parks and schools, with amazing views of the Pest side of the city.

The Hospital in the Rock was very interesting. It was first used as a hospital during WWII and then used as a nuclear bunker. The first half of the tour included the hospital portion, showing all the different patient rooms, operating rooms, surgical instruments used during WWII. The second half included a special exhibition about nuclear weapons, the horrible destruction they cause, and the nuclear threat still very present today. It included a description of the largest nuclear bombs held by countries today, 100s of times stronger than thos dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and a map showing the fall-out area if bombs were dropped on major cities around the world. Fascinating and frightening.

After that very uplifting tour, Ryan and I were getting hangry, and decided to walk to the Feny Street Market for some food. The market was definitely a local market, probably the least touristy thing we did in Budapest. It consisted mostly of produce stands and meat counters, though we did find one counter serving food. We ordered a traditional langos, with sour cream, cheese, and garlic. After a few bites, we had both had enough. It just wasn’t an enjoyable feeling to have that much fat in our mouths at one time. We finished our afternoon with a walk through the mall attached to the market, picking up a small Politie car with a siren and lights for Sam.

Traditional langos

The evening plan was to catch an organ concert at St. Stephens, but that was quickly scrapped. We got to the cathedral, found out tickets were $25ish per person, they only took cash, Kate went to get some out of the ATM, her Discover card was denied, and we all decided to bail.

Everyone trying to sort out the credit card issue

Kate and Egg went back to the Airbnb to sort out the card issues. It was a hassle, but luckily Kate got it all resolved via Twitter of all things. Ryan and I went to Pontoon, a bar on the river, to grab a bite and meet up with Attila. We had some pizza, drinks, and tried Palinka (yuck). There was some live music at the bar, so it was more crowded and noisy than usual, and Attila suggested we move to a place next door after finishing a round of drinks. The second bar was awesome! We sat on Adirondack chairs on the beach overlooking the river, just chilling and chatting.

View from the bar

Attila educated us on Hungarians’ favorite parts of U.S. pop culture.
– Hungarians love the show Dallas, and play a drinking game to it.
– They also love Colombo and have a statue of Colombo and his dog in a city park.
– American Pie, specifically the Stiffler character, was a big hit in Hungary, and there are many bars called Stiffler.
– Hungarians swear much more creatively than Americans, saying things such as “I cut off your head and pee in your neck”.

Even though Egg brought breakfast back to the Airbnb for all of us, we were still running late and missed the Pest walking tour. Instead, we wandered over to St. Stephen’s, where we walked around the cathedral and climbed (or road the elevator) up to the top for some good views of the city. The cathedral was built in the mid 1800’s and dedicated to, you guessed it, St. Stephen, the first King of Hungary. Maybe all domed buildings are like this and I just never knew, but I found it very interesting that the dome visible inside the cathedral was not actually the dome on the top.

My, what a big organ

Stairs up to the top of St. Stephen’s

Dome inside a dome

Egg at the top of St. Stephen’s

After St. Stephen’s (or maybe before, I don’t remember) we walked by the Dohany Street Synagogue. It was Rosh Hashanah, so no tours were occurring, but we could have entered to attend services. We were all surprised that they would let us in without having obtained tickets beforehand. Egg, Kate, and I considered returning on Tuesday to attend services, but decided against it, in favor of returning Wednesday for a tour instead.

Lunch was planned for the Grand Central Market, where we were also going to meet one of my CSC team members Attila. The bottom floor of the market was full of fresh foods one could buy, while the top floor was all food stands. Egg and Kate went up to scout it out, while Ryan and I met up with Attila. It was absolutely nuts upstairs! Egg and Kate were in line for langos, which Attila told us was really a snack, not a meal, since there was no meat in it :-). Attila also informed us that the food was all overpriced and only tourists go there to eat, though the produce and meat on the bottom floor looked reasonably priced. With that vote of confidence, we all decided to exit the market and find somewhere better to go.

Walking down the street we happened upon some restaurant that looked good, so we hopped inside. It was very helpful having Attila to help us decipher the menu and pick some good dishes. All around, everything was delicious! Egg and I shared some goose liver with tomatoes and potatoes, Kate got a pork knuckle, Ryan some beef stew, and Attila chicken with small dumpling like pastas. Attila and I caught up, and he suggested some good places for us to check out in Budapest. We also learned from Attila that Budapest has become the party city of Europe, with tons of bars and clubs, and a hot destination for bachelor and bachelorette parties. We planned to meet up again the following evening.

Attila and Nicole

Bathroom sign

Delicious choice for lunch!

The afternoon consisted of a boat tour along the Danube and time spent on Margaret Island, a small island in the middle of the river. Once we found the boat, the tour was nice and relaxing. Apparently gates are different than piers, and our boat was departing from pier 7, not gate 7, so we spent 10 minutes walking in the wrong direction. The boat was almost empty, so we had good seats and good views of both sides of the river. The audio provided descriptions of the buildings and sites we were passing. We enjoyed Vienna, but Budapest is definitely the more scenic of the two cities.

Boat tour! Parliament in the background

Shopping center called the whale, due to the design

Cave church

Buda Castle

Parliament

Once at Margaret Island, we rented bikes and rode around the island for an hour. As I learned, this was a big step out of Egg’s comfort zone, because he doesn’t bike. I had no idea. But as he said, vacation is for getting out of his comfort zone. Either way, it was just like riding a bike, and he did great. The island is mostly park land, and we passed a ton of playgrounds that Sam would have loved. We also road through a small zoo, ruins of an old monastery, a musical well, and a Japanese Garden. Things of note about Margaret’s Island: 1) It houses a bunch of sports venues, including a huge swimming complex that has hosted international events and 2) There is a rubber coated running track around the entire perimeter of the island, which, from our observations, gets good use. We enjoyed some post ride beer and snacks and hopped back on the boat for the return trip.

Go Egg go!

Obligatory photos with the Budapest sign on Margaret Island.

Eagle at the zoo

Gardens

Egg picked a great place for dinner, the Karavan Food Truck Court. It was basically a small alley with about 10 food trucks. After a walk around, we decided on langos, purchasing beef and pork langos burgers (must have meat to be a meal) and two veggie langos pizzas. The food was all pretty good. The langos (sort of like fried dough) were much lighter than we expected, though it was still too much for us to eat. The pork burger was delicious, and the pizzas with goat or sheep’s cheese and arugula or roasted red peppers were also very good. Ryan was also able to pick up another chimney cake for dessert.

Right next to Karavan was Szimpla Ruin Pub, that Attila recommended we try. Ruin pubs are a hot thing in Budapest, basically bars setup in run down buildings, with a lot of junk tables, chairs, and who knows what else. The Szimpla pub was almost like a pub court, with what appeared to be different bars setup throughout the building, one with a full bar, another with craft beers, a stage with music (actually the same group we had seen at the Budapest Wine Festival on Sunday night), and I think some place that had food, cause I saw people eating pizza. There was a garden in the middle of the second floor. Egg and Kate went in for a beer, Ryan and I just took turns walking through, since we had water bottles that were not allowed in. I wish we could have returned in the daylight to get a better view of the inside.

Map of Szimpla

Garden inside the pub

Ryan and I wandered by the Dohany Street Synagogue on the way home and saw the memorial tree of life.

Sunday morning, we packed up and headed out to catch the train to Budapest.

Tram in Vienna. Great public transportation in both cities. Another ‘train’ photo for Sam

After wandering around the train station for a little while, getting some breakfast and coffee, we headed towards the track for our train. Good think we had left ourselves plenty of time, because it turned out we didn’t actually have train tickets, just vouchers for train tickets. Off to the automatic ticket machines and information desk. After trying to get the tickets from the machine multiple times, as it appeared we should be able to do, Egg realized that the voucher number was not the same as the order number, and was able to follow the link in the e-mail confirmation to obtain the voucher number, at which point the machine spit out our train tickets. The train wasn’t too crowded initially, and we were all able to stow our luggage overhead and get a good seat. The train ride was nice and went by rather quickly.

Lots of wind farms outside Vienna. Ryan and I saw some on our hike also

Our train. Another picture for Sam. Choo choo

Once arriving in Budapest, we headed to the information desk in the train station to trade in our vouchers for the Budapest Cards. The e-mail vouchers indicated that the Budapest Cards could be picked up in the train station. Unfortunately, we had unintentionally purchased through a third party vendor, not directly through the Budapeast Card. The woman at the information desk was none to helpful either. It felt like talking with Turkish Airlines again. “Your vouchers are not in my system, I cannot help you. – Well, who can help us? – You need to go to the information desk in the center of Budapest. – Can you give us their number? – No, I don’t have their number. – Do you run off the same computer system as they do? – Yes. – In that case, why would they accept our vouchers. – I can’t help you, I don’t have your vouchers in my system”. After about 15 minutes of this, we decided to buy metro tickets and head to the office in central Budapest. The guy at the central office was very helpful, had studied abroad in Canada during high school, and took care of our Budapest Cards with no issue.

Off to the Airbnb. The original time to check-in to our Airbnb was 2:30pm. However, even with the Budapest Card voucher situtation, we were ready around 1:45pm and called our hosts Silvia and Gabor to see if we could check-in earlier, or at least drop our luggage off. The Airbnb was right around the corner from the information desk. Initially reluctant because Silvia was still cleaning the apartment, Gabor said we could come by now. Silvia met us and asked us, in her limited English, to all sit down at the table to wait for Gabor while she finished cleaning. Little did we know it would be an almost hour long check-in process. First, we had reserved the apartment (which sleeps 7) for only 2 people, and needed to pay extra money for all 4 of us. Egg and I knew when we booked it that the price was different with 4 people, but it always drives me crazy when the same space is more expensive for more people. I can see a little bit more money, required for the extra cleaning, laundry, etc, but it was almost 1.5x the original price for 2 people. Either way, it was still a good deal and in a good location, so we paid the extra amount in Euros. Gabor then talked at us for another 45 minutes. He gave us a tour of the apartment, showing us how to work the dishwasher, but not the washing machine, which would have been useful. He talked about the surrounding area and city sites. He explained how to work the air conditioner and that it would be 5 Euros a day if we used it. He tried to show us how to work the TV, but had problems, and we weren’t going to use it anyway. He told us that they have a shuttle service and can drive us to the airport if desired (we passed). I can’t even remember what else he told us, I think we just all tuned him out. Finally, he was done! We pulled whatever we needed from our bags and headed out to Buda Castle for the wine festival!

Through the rest of the trip, we realized that Gabor and Silvia must run Airbnbs as their primary business, and they also owned the apartment next door. It also appears that Silvia may be a doctor, as the tag on the door reads ‘Dr. Silvia S’. Maybe she cleans Airbnbs in her retirement?

Kate and Egg detoured to the Matthias Church, while Ryan and I stopped for some food cause I was getting pretty cranky.

Ryan and I were rather disturbed when the guy serving our food first sneezed and coughed into his hands and wiped his nose before handing us our plates. Yuck! Ryan was sure he getting a cold for a day and a half after that. Prior to heading onto the Buda Castle grounds, we detoured to the Labyrinth, one of the sets of caves under the Buda Hills. The caves were pretty cool, and I wish there had been more information on the history of them. Instead, there were wax opera figures setup with music piped in. Very kitchy, slightly ridiculous, definitely not something I would recommend to Budapest visitors. Back up to the castle grounds. We double checked this time, the confirmations we had were actually tickets for the Buda Wine Festival, not just vouchers that needed to be handed in somewhere else for tickets.

The Buda Wine Festival was a ton of fun! There were winery and food stands setup all over the castle grounds, plus small stages with music. We were able to get full or half pours for very reasonable prices and all enjoyed a lot of wine and good food. I stuck with the sweet dessert wines mostly, my favorite. Ryan was introduced to chimney cake, which he then proceeded to seek out for the rest of our time in Budapest. The Buda Wine Festival was a great place to celebrate the new year and Kate and Egg’s anniversary.

Chimney cakes

Parliament building from Buda Castle

‘Artsy’ parliament building from Buda Castle. Not sure how we did this.

Chain Bridge from Buda Castle

On the walk home

Ryan’s fascination with spiders

A good reminder on vacation

Like the London Eye (actually called ‘Budapest Eye’) but about 1/4 of the size

Shanah Tovah! Happy Anniversary to Kate and Egg! A great place to celebrate both!

After the false start on Friday, Ryan and I set alarms to get up and out for hiking on Saturday. We packed up, took the first tram to the second tram stop, ate breakfast at a small cafe, and hopped on the second tram for the 45 minute ride out to the hike. Ryan took on planning for the hike, and had settled on Staadtwedenweg 1 (city hiking trail 1), up to Kahlenberg. Vienna is in the foothills of the Alps, and there are many close hiking trails. Like the previous days, the weather was gorgeous. Low to mid 70s and sunny. Most of the hike was on paved narrow roads, through peaceful suburbs with lots of greenery and big trees and vineyards. The last part of the hike led us off onto unpaved paths through the forest, with steep switchbacks.

Path through suburbs

Vineyards in the cemetery

Lots of grapes!

More grapes

Buddhist temple/shrine on the side of the path. Looked slightly like a bunch of junk.

These markers were all throughout the hike, still haven’t figured out their meaning.

At the top, I used what I described to Ryan as a futuristic toilet. I wish I’d taken a picture. The whole thing is metal. You walk in and close the heavy door, and push a button to lock it. The toilet is this massive basin, presumably so the guys can’t miss. There is a toilet seat up against the back wall, you grab the handle and pull the toilet seat down. Again, perhaps so guys don’t make a mess of it. After using the toilet, you raise the seat back up, and push a button on the right wall to flush. On the left wall, there is a soap dispenser and faucet built right into the wall, extending slightly over the massive basin. You push the button to dispense soap and turn on the water. When all done, another button is pushed to unlock the door. Overall, very clean and well maintained.

Also at the top, we walked around the small area of Kahlenberg, with shops, cafes, and a hotel. While we hiked, one could drive or take a bus up to the top. From the top, there were great views of Vienna and the Danube River.

We could have taken the little train up, but since when do we do things the easy way? This train picture is for Sam.

The hike continued back down the mountain. We passed through a fun ropes course with ziplines and considered trying it out, but decided it was too crowded. Instead, we continued the hike and stopped at a cafe and winery overlooking the vineyard with the city in the background. What a delightful place for a break and some refreshments! It would have been easy to just sit relaxing there all day. Reminded me a bit of the wineries in Mendoza. Ryan had a glass of Reisling, while I tried the sturm.

Raisins on the side of the road

Post-hike beer at the bottom

FaceTime with Sam when we got back to the apartment! He was involved in one of his favorite activities, moving water from one container to another, and then dumping it on Pumpa’s feet!

The evening consisted of Mozart’s Requiem in Karlskirche. Ryan and I grabbed an early dinner before hand and then wandered around the Busker’s Festival going on in Karlsplatz before finding Kate and Egg and going into the church. This was our first experience dealing with vouchers, which are quickly becoming a thing on this trip. Apparently we had vouchers for tickets for the concert, not the actual tickets. We had to stand in line to swap our vouchers for tickets, and then stand in another line to get into the church with our tickets. The church was a very majestic venue for the concert, and the symphony and choir were very moving. So moving that all of us except for Kate fell asleep at some point. I was probably the biggest culprit. Regardless, we all enjoyed. Afterwards, we watched a fire thrower perform outside the church (part of the festival), and attempted top stop for dessert/coffee/wine at a cool looking cafe on the way home. After sitting for 20 minutes with no one approaching us to take an order, we called it quits and went back to the Airbnb to go to sleep.

Friday was another day of mostly wandering around and enjoying the weather. Ryan and I were originally planning to do a hike, but slept in too late. Egg doesn’t do nature, so he and Kate were going to hang out in the city and take in more sites. Once we decided not to go hiking, we walked over to the museum quarter and had a relaxing, delicious breakfast (except for all the bees).

Museum Quarter

Monument to empress Maria Theresa

Egg and Kate were unfortunately thwarted on their plans. They missed the 11am St. Stephen’s tour, even though they were there at 10:58, and were told that the rest of the tours for the day were cancelled due to an afternoon event. They then walked over to the Stadttempel, and were told that they could not walk in for a tour, but could come back with their passports and be allowed in to services.

Ryan and I wandered over to meet Egg and Kate, passing a few sites along the way. We walked into the part of St. Stephen’s Cathedral that was opened, getting a decent look at the cathedral and listening to a choir warming up.

St. Stephen’s Cathedral

The four of us then visited St. Virgil’s Chapel, a chapel located in one of the underground stations. Built in the 1200s, it had been buried and was only rediscovered while building the underground in the 1970s.

Ryan and I wandered back slowly to the Airbnb. Vienna has beautiful buildings, churches, and statues at every turn.

Monument Against War and Fascism

Statue of Joseph Haydn

Time for FaceTime! This was the first time FaceTiming with Sam since we left on Monday. Ryan’s parents drove down to Texas to watch Sam for most of our trip. And then my parents have him for the last few days. I was a little concerned, because Kris said Sam has been missing us, and I wanted to make sure he didn’t think we had abandoned him. His teacher at school said that when they talked about mommy and daddy at lunch, Sam started to cry :-(. Sam keeps walking into our bedroom looking for us. Kris told him we are on a plane, so every time mommy or daddy is mentioned, Sam does the sign for plane. According to Sam, we may be on an airplane for the entire trip. Luckily, FaceTime went pretty well. Sam told us what he ate from breakfast, showed us his Samstorm (tissue paper torn up that he likes to throw up in the air and lay in), and sang wheels on the bus. At the end of the call, he kept saying ‘No, no’ when we were getting ready to hang up, which was sad. He’s doing fine, I’m probably having a harder time.

Time to catch the tram and underground to the MuTh for the Vienna Boys Choir. This was my first time riding the public transport in Vienna. As Egg had said, actually paying for public transport appears to be optional. As opposed to the US, where there are gates that one must pass through, or a bus driver checking passes, Vienna has these small readers where you can validate your pass. The pass readers do not have gates and in no way stop one from entering. The bus and tram drivers also do not check or ask people to validate their passes. The public transport runs frequently and is very easy to use.

Here comes the tram! Great public transportation in Vienna

The Vienna Boys Choir was a lot of fun and very good. The conductor had a ton of energy (spunky, as Ryan said) and all the boys looked to be enjoying themselves. They sounded amazing and sang a few well known pieces by Strauss, Haydn, Rogers and Hammerstein (Edelweiss). The venue was very intimate and all seats had great views of the stage. At Kate pointed it, these incredibly talented boys could sing in unison, but are still kids and couldn’t manage to coordinate their bows. Every time they took a bow, it’s as if they would all sneak looks at one another saying “Now? Is now the right time?”. At one point, one of the boys went to bow and then made a motion to the others like “What are you doing”? Regardless, they sounded great and were a lot of fun to watch.

After the show was wonderful dinner at an Egg chosen establishment. Delicious dishes all around.

After 3 days of exhausting travel, Ryan and I slept in and we all took it slow. Egg was restless and headed out to breakfast. Kate did some work. Once I was up, she and I headed out to meet Egg near the Opera House. We went to a nearby cafe for breakfast, where Ryan caught up with us shortly, and then we all went over to the Opera House for a tour. The Vienna Opera House, Wiener Staatsoper, was originally built in the 1860s in the Neo-Renaissance style. The majority of the opera house was destroyed in WWII and had been rebuilt in the 1950s to match the original design. There were a few new sections built in more of a 1950s style. The stage was being set up for Carmen, opening that evening, so we were unable to get a backstage tour. We were able to sit in the theater and see the full extent of the stage and how deep it was, more than 2x the depth of the stage visible during a performance. The stage can drop down, and new sets moved in from the sides and the back. The sets for Carmen were pretty amazing. We also learned about the Opera House Ball held every year, which is open to the public for only 350 Euro. Our tour guide gives tours of the opera house during the summer. During the rest of the year, he is a professor at the university, he’s a medical doctor. The Vienna Opera House stands in stark contrast to the other opera houses we have toured, namely Sydney and Oslo. Both of those houses are very modern, energy efficient, designed to make a statement, be inviting, and complement nicely the natural beauty of their locations.

Big pink rabbit outside of the opera house. No clue on why

Set of Carmen

Playing dress up at the Opera House

Egg makes a much better opera singer

After the tour, we wandered over to and around Belvedere Gardens, enjoying the beautiful weather. From the gardens, there is a nice view of Vienna, though not quite as impressive as it sounded in the tour guides. As we discussed, Vienna doesn’t really have much of a skyline, and the gardens, while at a slightly higher elevation, was not really high enough to get a good view.

Schloss Belvedere

In the botanical gardens

Vienna from the Belvedere Gardens

We wandered through the Naschmarkt on the way to dinner. The Naschmarkt is a well known open-air market, containing anything you could want: nuts and dried fruit, meats, cheeses, olives, fish, fresh fruit and veggies, rice and grains, cafes, small tchotchkes, etc. Kate and Egg had gone through the previous day and enjoyed, but the market was closing and there were not too many samples available. Ryan was going to buy a dragon fruit, but the vendor wanted to charge him 20 Euro, so he passed. We have found that there are a lot of bees in Vienna. It was sort of disturbing to see all the bees flying in and around all the dried fruit. We grabbed some dinner at an Egg recommended cafe and headed home for the evening.

The plan was to take an American Airlines flight from Austin to Chicago, arriving in Chicago around 3:45pm, providing us a full 6 hours before our international flight on Turkish Airlines to Vienna with a layover in Istanbul. We would meet Kate and Egg in Chicago. Egg was bringing a delicious dinner of roasted vegetables, ribs, and tofu. We figured 6 hours should be plenty sufficient. The travel gods had other plans.

Immediately after boarding our AA flight, scheduled to depart at 1:15pm, the pilots announce that Chicago has bad weather, our flight has been delayed 3 hours, and everyone needs to deplane. Ok, 3 hours, no cause for concern yet, that still gives us 3 hours in between flights in Chicago. At 4:25, we all board the plane again. Once on the plane, the pilots tell us (in I don’t remember which order) that there is a ground hold in Austin due to bad weather, and then there is a hold on any flights departing for Chicago again due to bad weather, and we will be sitting on the plane for an hour. That time passes, at which point the pilots announce we are ready to go, just waiting for the luggage to finish loading. Huh??!! The plane has been sitting at the gate for 5 hours at this point and the luggage isn’t all loaded?! Luggage gets loaded, at which point the pilots announce they have reached their end of day and all passengers must get off the plane again. Ryan and I have been hemming and hawing about whether we were going to make the Turkish Airlines flight, but now it is pretty obvious.

Off the plane. The airport is absolute chaos. Our flight is rescheduled for 9:25pm, awaiting the arrival of an air crew coming from JFK. We go to grab food, Schlotsky’s for me and Salt Lick for Ryan, cause we are getting a bit cranky and have a lot of details to sort out before getting on the Chicago flight. As an aside, a bunch of new restaurants have opened or are opening soon in ABIA, including a Mad Greens, which I’m excited about.

First up, I call the travel insurance provider to find out the process for using the travel insurance. Slight language barrier, but I understand that we need to go ahead and make the necessary arrangements and then submit claims to be reimbursed. Second, update Kate and Egg on the situation. Call Steve Exo and let him know Ryan and I will be crashing at Kate and Egg’s for the night, to please leave out a key. Now for the fun part, dealing with Turkish Airlines.

I call the toll free number and connect to ticketing and reservations. I explain the issue and that we need to reschedule our travel to Vienna for the next night. Unfortunately, they are unable to do anything because I already checked in for the original flights. (I checked in online earlier in the day). I ask who can help me. The agent tells me that I need to talk with the ticketing office in Chicago. I ask for the number. Sorry, she doesn’t have the number and cannot connect me to the ticketing office, but she can provide the physical address. What?? I ask who I talk to that can help. She connects me with customer service. Customer service tells me that I need to connect back with ticketing, who should be able to make my changes. I get connected back to ticketing. Again no luck. I google the ticketing office in Chicago and call the local Chicago number. The menu has 4 options. I choose one after another, until I’ve tried all 4. Two of them send me to voicemail, the other two just disconnect me after a number of rings.

We are on the phone with Kate and Egg who are talking with the ticketing agent in Chicago. The ticketing agent is no help at all and provides the toll free number to call. I call back the toll free number. Back to ticketing, still can’t help me, forwarded along to customer service, who tells me I need to be connected back with ticketing, tell them to offload us from the flight. Back to ticketing, they offload us but still can’t change our flight to the next night. Back to customer service, he says it looks like only Ryan was offloaded from the flight, he offloads me. If customer service could offload us, why did they keep sending me back to ticketing?? Ok, back to ticketing again. Now we are offloaded and they can reschedule our flight for $2000. Are you friggin’ kidding me? Kate and Egg are now talking with a different ticketing agent in Chicago who says that he can get us the flight for $1800. Still ridiculous. Now the agent I’m on the phone with says she has it for $1800. Why did the price drop? The first time she had the system automatically choose the cheapest option and it came to $2000. The second time she manually put in the flights and it came to $1800. For comparison, our original flights were < $1200. With no other choice, we pony up the $1800. Luckily, travel insurance should cover most of it. An hour and a half later, we have finally resolved our flight issues and are scheduled to depart one day later from Chicago.

The above description of rescheduling our flights is no exaggeration. Actually, I am probably leaving out a few times transferred back and forth between ticketing and customer service.

Our flight to Chicago did take off at 9:25pm and we finally made it to Kate and Egg’s apartment around 1:30am.

Lessons Learned:
1) Do NOT fly Turkish Airlines. This is the second PITA interaction with them. Egg had a huge hassle choosing seats a few months ago.
2) Make all arrangements on the same booking. If it had been on the same booking, then the airlines would have had to figure out the rescheduling and we would not have had to pay. Ryan is awarded a big ‘I told you so’ on this one. Booking separately always makes him nervous.
3) Travel insurance is totally worth it.

While having to rearrange plans and losing a day in Vienna was pretty crappy, there was an upside to the travel issues.

We got to spend a fun day in Chicago playing with Nathan! He looked a little confused when I came out of the bedroom in the morning, but quickly warmed up to us and soon had us playing trains. We built huge circle train tracks, went to the park, watched the ‘L’, and read lots of books.

Circle train!

At 4pm, Nate and Deb stood outside and watched us get in a Uber and head to the airport. Exactly the same as they had done the day previously when Kate and Egg left. At check-in, I negotiated the extra leg room seats. We had paid for them originally with the initial booking but did not pay again when we had to reschedule. Our seats wound up being pretty good, bulkhead, with ample legroom. The game of the day was musical chairs before off . . . Something about multiple babies in the same row needing bassinets, not enough oxygen masks, asking if the guy next to us or maybe we could move, but they seemed to work it all out. Three hours into the flight, one of the flight attendants approached us and asked if we wanted to move to business class, again, something about babies and oxygen masks. The business class seats were middle seats, one in front of the other. Ryan and I of course said sure!

The next part was clandestine. The flight attendant explained that Ryan and I would go up to business class one at a time, she would bring our bags, so no one knew we were moving up there. As we sort of understood/figured out, they had resolved the babies and oxygen mask thing by having a married couple move, perhaps out of better seats. This couple was doing nothing but complaining the entire flight, so the flight attendants were trying to move them to better seats. However, because the flight attendants were annoyed with this couple, rather than move them to business class, the flight attendants were going to move them to our seats with the bulkhead and extra legroom, and move us to business class. No complaining here! The business class seats were very comfortable and fully reclined, so we could actually lay down and sleep. It was amazing! Breakfast was delicious fresh fruit, croissant, and choice of fried eggs or omelette. I could get used to that!

The rest of the trip to Vienna was uneventful. Layover in Istanbul wasn’t too bad. Airport was crowded but we didn’t find it as hot as Egg had warned us. Short flight to Vienna, gathered our bags, Uber to the Airbnb, where we met up with Egg and Kate only a day late. Ryan and Egg went out to get a doner kebab and we all hit the hay.

While Ryan has been drinking his way through the country, I have been slurping my way. All the food in Ireland is very good, whether it is at a nice restaurant, a hotel bar, or some random pub we stop at in a small town. In general, the menus contain similar items, with almost all containing the following: seafood chowder with brown bread, soup of the day with brown bread, steamed mussels, fish and chips, and beef and/or lamb stew. Ireland is very conscious of allergies, and many menus list which items contain fish, eggs, dairy, nuts, seeds, gluten, soy, and in one case celery (didn’t know this was a common allergen). They are also a very farm/lake/sea to market country, with many menus including where their food is sourced from.

Now, back to the soups. With the summer weather being rainy, windy, and cold, I could see why soup is such a big hit. The typical soup of the day was some type of vegetable soup, of which I tried almost all, and they were almost all delicious; tomato, tomato and basil, mushroom with cream, mushroom without cream, potato with cream, potato and leek, potato and sweet corn, cauliflower and cheese, and my favorite carrot and dill. Delicious! This is definitely something we should adopt in the U.S. in the winter time.